Bitcoin Circulation review

[promise444c5]

So, I was wondering what could happen when someone lost his access to his non custodial wallet or died in the eventually long run then,  I came
about this thread

Imaging bitcoin becomes popular and we want to use this currency forever, and some amount of bitcoin is lost from this economy each day.

Does anybody think this is a problem?

I found some interesting replies but I wasn't satisfied though. My thought is , if bitcoin has a fixed amount that could be circulated then,what about the shortage due to some occurrence.

Among the replies I found one

Most sane people won't store most of their Bitcoins on a single wallet.dat file on their laptop, once Bitcoin becomes mainstream. Unless it's only a small amount.  

At the very least they will make several backups and tell a family member about them.

I found this helpful but what of vice versa

Source: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=3951.0

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[bitmover]

This will probably never be a problem.

There are millions of Bitcoin around, and just a small percentage is lost. And the amount lost every year will be exponentially smaller over time,  as bitcoin value increase

Sub satoshi amounts are already being used in lighting network.

It is hard to calculate how many are forever lost  because they may just be on hold. Glassnode says about 10%, 2 million
https://medium.com/the-capital/how-many-bitcoin-are-lost-forever-34f2b48a6dba

[Zaguru12]

Definitely the number of bitcoin that will be lost reducing gradually every day because the knowledge of how to hold one’s bitcoin is spreading rapidly and many people now know how to safeguard their coins.

So with the value increasing the act of protecting the coins will also increase. Also the lost bitcoins actually have its own effect on the circulating as it add value to the the ones in investors self custody as stated by Satoshi himself

Lost coins only make everyone else's coins worth slightly more.  Think of it as a donation to everyone.

So although it reduces the number in circulation it increases the value of it

[promise444c5]

This will probably never be a problem.

There are millions of Bitcoin around, and just a small percentage is lost. And the amount lost every year will be exponentially smaller over time,  as bitcoin value increase

Sub satoshi amounts are already being used in lighting network.

It is hard to calculate how many are forever lost  because they may just be on hold. Glassnode says about 10%, 2 million
https://medium.com/the-capital/how-many-bitcoin-are-lost-forever-34f2b48a6dba

I checked the link , and I found out 1 M BTC  still lies with Satoshi Nakamoto let's  just bring up assumption that he's/she's dead as nobody know whereabouts', orhe/she eventually died later with the funds still on hold what will happen  1M BTC gone forever ??

[aoluain]

Over time its feasible that the supply will actually reduce for many reasons, for example:

Transfering to a wrong address or an address not accessible anymore
Losing access to a wallet either by user error or a non-custodial access restriction
Death of a wallet owner and loss of access.

In the end of the day there is a benefit to us all in that the supply is reduced.

What can we do?
Take full control of any coins, dont trust anyone else to hold them for you.

Bequeath your wallet to a relation or other in a will or safer by timelocking a transaction.

[Solosanz]

If the coins is completely gone and no one can access it, this can be said the owner is help Bitcoin become scarcer.

It's not really a matter if there are some coins gone forever, actually if there's an unknown person can access Satoshi or someone else coins, that just make people think Bitcoin is no longer safe because it's not secure for long term holding.

[logfiles]

Bitcoin can be expressed into smaller units

For example
1 BTC = 100,000,000 Satoshi
0.001 BTC = 1mBTC = 100,000 Satoshi
and so on...

So you shouldn't worry about the lost Bitcoins or circulating supply, as the price goes higher. Owning 1 single Bitcoin becomes harder. Denominations of 0.1 BTC, 0.001BTC will become common and normal.

[SamReomo]

~Snip~

I checked the link , and I found out 1 M BTC  still lies with Satoshi Nakamoto let's  just bring up assumption that he's/she's dead as nobody know whereabouts', orhe/she eventually died later with the funds still on hold what will happen  1M BTC gone forever ??

Well, it's generally an estimation that Satoshi Nakamoto holds 1 million or 1.1 million Bitcoin in his/her wallets. So far those Bitcoin are untouched and Satoshi never attempted to make any transaction out of those wallets till this day. Let's say that if Satoshi never touches those wallets and allow the funds to stay in those wallets then in that situations those BTC are gone forever as long as someone else doesn't have the private keys of the wallets where Satoshi stored those Bitcoin.

Let's say if someone knows the addresses of those wallets and has the private keys of those wallets of Satoshi Nakamoto then in that case the lost Bitcoin can be recovered and added into the market. Surely those may cause Bitcoin's price to go very low in value if they are added into market today. The investors will get a shock if they see 1 million more Bitcoin into the market and that's why most of them will sell their hold coins for cheap rates.

[Don Pedro Dinero]

I checked the link , and I found out 1 M BTC  still lies with Satoshi Nakamoto let's  just bring up assumption that he's/she's dead as nobody know whereabouts', orhe/she eventually died later with the funds still on hold what will happen  1M BTC gone forever ??

Well, many different sources put the number of bitcoins lost forever at 4 million, in some cases as high as 6 million.

Six Million Bitcoins Now Lost Forever? Why This Matters

Ask CryptoVantage: How Much Bitcoin Has Been Lost Forever?

How Many Bitcoins Have Been Lost?

As I think Satoshi said, this only has the effect of making the rest of the bitcoins more valuable. Eventually, if scarcity becomes too tight, subdivisions of satoshis could be established.

[jrrsparkles]

if bitcoin has a fixed amount that could be circulated then,what about the shortage due to some occurrence.

Let's say 10 Million bitcoins were lost due to many reasons we will still have 11 million Bitcoins in circulation which will be enough in my opinion and the lost 10 million bitcoins will do nothing but add value to the remaining 11 million bitcoins.

You were talking about a thread created in 2011 By that time BTC was worth 2 figures but in 2023 it was valued at 5 figures and sooner it can reach 6 figures I mean after the next halving so in my opinion people are not going to be careless with such valuable asset so chances of losing further bitcoins will be negligible and so it will not affect the circulation and create a shortage.

[Faisal2202]

I found some interesting replies but I wasn't satisfied though. My thought is , if bitcoin has a fixed amount that could be circulated then,what about the shortage due to some occurrence.
I found this helpful but what of vice versa

You are reading a way old post, but still, this circulatory problem exists. To be honest, I do not know about others. But yeah! I also have these types of discussions with myself. Like, what if I die and all the BTC I have goes to waste? So, I have a little brother, and I have told him about the funds I have but did not tell him how he could access them because he is still young and I do not want my BTC to be spent on some games.

So, I will just teach them until I have some point, and once I realise now is the time, then I might guide them about withdrawals and about keys. Till then, I am taking the risk of not telling anyone. I am honestly not doing it just because the satoshi will be wasted, because from one angle, that's good for the community, as the more BTC forbidden, the lesser the supply will be, and the more demand will increase the price of BTC.

I am doing it because I do not want my earnings to be wasted.

Telling a family member is the only way possible because I trust them more than some third-party company, which assures full confidence that they will provide the funds back but all they deduct is a small fee. hehe. I mean, why would I take the more risky option when I have a lesser one?

[khiholangkang]

if bitcoin has a fixed amount that could be circulated then,what about the shortage due to some occurrence.

Snip

You were talking about a thread created in 2011 By that time BTC was worth 2 figures but in 2023 it was valued at 5 figures and sooner it can reach 6 figures I mean after the next halving so in my opinion people are not going to be careless with such valuable asset so chances of losing further bitcoins will be negligible and so it will not affect the circulation and create a shortage.

This is a logical reason that can be taken by the times, people are becoming more and more wary of saving their bitcoins because it is very valuable, different from the past when it was still said that it was not that valuable for many people who had it, for example, phasing seeds that were stored carelessly or Don't even save it somewhere you can look back on it in the future.
And today there are many people who store and store bitcoins properly so that they are safe from theft, and of course they will also store their seed money safely based on the awareness that bitcoins are very valuable. It's stored in a wallet which results in a lack of supply because it's stored in a wallet that can't be reopened, and this is a good thing because it keeps the bitcoin price from continuing to rise.

[promise444c5]

if bitcoin has a fixed amount that could be circulated then,what about the shortage due to some occurrence.

You were talking about a thread created in 2011 By that time BTC was worth 2 figures but in 2023 it was valued at 5 figures and sooner it can reach 6 figures I mean after the next halving so in my opinion people are not going to be careless with such valuable asset so chances of losing further bitcoins will be negligible and so it will not affect the circulation and create a shortage.

That old thread shows an expectation  and now it has come to past as this coin is now more established.  In short , what he said is now the present.

[Aanuoluwatofunmi]

Lost Bitcoin is believed to be recycled back to the market stream without being stucked anywhere, as for those that always ask for how it all goes about, but yet even if this lost coins aren't circulated back to the network, do we think it's something that's going to affect the market demand and supply of bitcoin in the future base on the amount of bitcoin we have left to be mined, how many people do we have their statistics loosing bitcoin every months or year, compared to what we have on ground and the rate people make sure they avoid making mistakes in everything they do when making transactions.

[DVlog]

Those bitcoins will never be accessible again. They just simply out of circulation forever. it's a very small percentage compared to the actual Bitcoin market cap. TBH if you have a few million dollars in somewhere then you will probably make a backup plan so that if something happens to you, your family members can get that. Most of the bitcoin that is out of circulation forever because of some unexpected incident happened when the price of bitcoin was very cheap so no one cared at that time.

[BIT-BENDER]

I think people are getting wiser and making wiser decision concerning how they save Bitcoin, I don't think the amount of Bitcoin getting lost would be the same as we have always seen it to be and that's because of the steady awareness that is being spread about keeping your seed phrase and wallet safe.

I think it is not going to be a problem and as Bitcoin keeps getting more adoption services or ways to protect your Bitcoin wallet would be available for use.

[mk4]

Bitcoin getting lost is simply just more frequent for old wallets simply because they were worth crap back then but now are worth a good amount of money. If you hold a good amount of money in bitcoin/crypto and manage to lose the keys, sorry — but it's really just your fault due to carelessness, not the protocol's.

Heck, even gold gets lost. Someone out there probably managed to drop his/her gold ring/earring at sea or something; or probably accidentally flushes it down the toilet, etc.

[JunaidAzizi]

I checked the link , and I found out 1 M BTC  still lies with Satoshi Nakamoto let's  just bring up assumption that he's/she's dead as nobody know whereabouts', orhe/she eventually died later with the funds still on hold what will happen  1M BTC gone forever ??

The death of Satoshi Nakmoto has been a mystery no one knows if he died or not, The world does not know him nor do they see him so how they will know about his death? Let's come to the topic if Satoshi Nakamoto is dead and the private key is unknowable to someone else then this  1 M BTC will gone forever but in case if someone knows then it is possible to regain it. The total supply of BTC is capped at 21 M and if 1M is lost, there would be still 20M BTC left. However, it is important to back up your wallet on a daily basis if you lose your wallet key then with the help of this backup you can easily access your wallet.

[SatoPrincess]

You’re using a very old thread as reference, it’s been over 10 years and the bitcoin ecosystem has grown rapidly since then. People are more protective of their bitcoins as it’s worth more, I don’t think losing private keys is a popular problem as it used to be ten years ago.

I checked the link , and I found out 1 M BTC  still lies with Satoshi Nakamoto let's  just bring up assumption that he's/she's dead as nobody know whereabouts', orhe/she eventually died later with the funds still on hold what will happen  1M BTC gone forever ??

I doubt Satoshi will ever move his bitcoins. Any movement of those bitcoins would cause a panic in the crypto market and also trigger governments and people to go on a witch hunt to track Satoshi even more than normal. This is something I believe Satoshi would want to risk, those bitcoins will forever be locked away as long as Satoshi identity is to remain hidden.

[The Cryptovator]

If you lost your wallet access permanently, just consider it a gift for the entire Bitcoin community. Because your lost Bitcoin went out of circulation supply. Though it won't impact hugely on the price still it benefits the entire Bitcoin community by reducing circulation. It's just a scenario, not expecting a loss for anyone. Just secure your wallet credentials offline and to multiple places. So even missing one other will help. Maintain a personal notebook that could help to recover your crypto assets in case you passed away. So your next generation could recover it somehow.